


Nightly Adventures

by Momuno



Series: The "kind of a happy childhood AU" nobody asked for [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: A small amount of blood, Brotherly Bonding, Gen, No real plot just fluff, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 15:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17852399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Momuno/pseuds/Momuno
Summary: Hoping to win a snowball fight against Diego was like jumping into the ocean and expecting to stay dry.





	Nightly Adventures

**Author's Note:**

> So it really is happening. I am finally posting my first OneShot on here! After starting multiple drafts and never finishing any of them, it's almost a wonder, this is happening. I hope some of you actually enjoy this little story. After all, I am planning on writing a whole Series with OneShots like this one. I would really appreciate some feedback, no matter if it's in regards of the story itself, grammar or spelling (Grammarly can only do so much for a dyslexic person like myself xD) or just anything you notice.  
> Also, I apologize if the characters seem a little OOC. I'm still getting used to writing them and I usually don't write children... heck I don't even know if children behave like this xD I just hope they do ^^  
> Oh, I also have little to no knowledge of the comics, because the closest comic book store I know is in Munich and I don't get there that often, so this is solely based on the TV-show :D  
> Anyways. Seeing as it is almost 2 am I should probably head to bed now ^^ So have (hopefully) fun, reading this and good night ^^

A long time ago, Diego had decided that out of all his siblings he had the best taste in music. Sure the others listened to one or two good songs once in a while but most of the time Diego could only roll his eyes at their choices. He was really glad that he had gotten the Walkman he had wanted for so long. Now he was able to just tune them out as often and for as long as he wanted to, or at least till the batteries ran out and he had to hunt down a pair of new ones in this old house.  
The eleven-year-old lay on his back, while listening to the fast beats of his Beastie Boys cassette - music, his father deemed vulgar but what the old man didn't know couldn't hurt him, so who was Diego to care. He was throwing an old baseball into the air only to catch it with his other hand every time it came back down again. The young boy was careful not to hit any surface with the ball. He knew he would get in trouble if he started making a ruckus at this time. After all, it was already half past 12:00 am and he was supposed to be asleep. But he just couldn't will his body into resting for the night. It had started snowing around 7 pm and the kids, not allowed to go outside for the evening, had spent hours watching through the big downstairs windows as the backyard slowly started to turn into a white wonderland until Mother had shown up and told them that it was time to go to bed. All he wanted to do was get up and run around in the snow for a while. Was that too much to ask? Five would probably raise an eyebrow at him and tell him he was being childish, but Five was an idiot anyway, so Diego didn't really care about his opinion.   
He sighed softly and pulled the headphones from his ears. If he couldn't go outside he could at least go downstairs and watch the snow fall for a little more time. If he was caught he would just pretend he was thirsty. No matter how _important sleep_ was, nobody could blame him for needing water, right? 

Careful not to step on the creaking floorboards Diego started to make his way downstairs. The old house lay in utter darkness. The lamps had all been turned off and while the moon would usually fill the hallways in its silvery light, the thick blanket of clouds prevented it from doing so. That, however, didn't prove to be a problem. Diego could be blind and still find his way around the rooms. It was even easier now that their father turned the surveillance cameras off from time to time. Slowly but steadily Diego made his way down the stairs and towards his goal. He had almost made it when - suddenly - a noise reached his ears and made him freeze on the spot.  
It wasn't the settling of the old house, no Diego was used to hear such noises in the middle of the night, they wouldn't catch his attention. This was something different, something almost but not totally out of place. It reminded Diego of what he had done only seconds before. Somebody was up and awake and desperately trying not to cause too big of a commotion. The only difference was that whoever was down here was definitely not alone. They were murmuring to each other but it was too quiet for Diego to identify the voices. He should have taken the baseball with him when he had left his bedroom. That way he would have had something he could defend himself with. It was a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless, that whoever was here with him were intruders and Diego had been taught not to take unnecessary risks... Well, they had tried to teach him not to take unnecessary risks. A futile attempt as it turned out because Diego's instinct told him to do one thing and one thing alone. Investigate.  

Step by step he started strategically making his way through the ground floor. He really wished his family would be just a tiny bit messier. That way he could find something, anything to hold on to and throw if he really had to. But since the kids were taught to clean up after themselves, a rule some of them gladly ignored when it came to their own rooms, there was nothing but the prestige floor tiles beneath his feet. The murmuring got a little louder when Diego rounded a corner and for the second time that night the young man stopped dead in his tracks. On the other end of the hall, he was currently standing in lay a bathroom. The light inside had been turned on and it illuminated parts of the hallway's wall since the door hadn't been closed. Diego felt a smirk creep onto his lips. If these people were truly intruders, they would be the dumbest intruders he would ever have the honor of meeting. Who would turn on a ceiling light while trying to rob a place? Besides that, now that Diego was closer he could make out the whispering voices good enough to know exactly who was in there. 

Diego was well aware that he and the others were the exact same age. They were, after all, born on the same date. Still, he couldn't help but see the others has his little siblings. Well not all of them. If he had to put a label on it, he would probably describe Luther as more of a big brother, even though he would never let him know that. There was no need to push the blondes ego.  
So it was no wonder that he put on his most authoritative voice when he stepped into the light and saw two of his little brothers with their backs turned to him hovering over the sink. Well at least he tried to, but the fact that his stutter started to act up in the middle of the sentence kind of ruined the effect. "What the hell are you two do-" his voice broke off but it was enough for Number Four and Six to spin around immediately. Klaus, Diego noticed, was holding his right hand behind his back, while Ben looked so ashamed that he wasn't even able to raise his head to look into his brother's eyes.   
Diego wasn't even surprised that it was the two of them. All things considered, it would have been weirder if it had been only one. Klaus and Ben had started spending a lot more time in each other's presence since their powers had started getting stronger. Maybe, Diego mused, it was because they were, as far as the boy knew, the only two of them that were actually afraid of their own powers and understood each other a little more than any of his other siblings could.   
  
"So?", he asked when neither of his brothers even made an attempt to answer his not fully spoken but still pretty obvious question. "Could ask you the same", Klaus grinned. A mischievous glint in his eyes, while still holding his hand behind his back. Diego noticed that the medicine cabinet behind the mirror had been opened and some bandages had been taken out. Great, one of them was bleeding, and from their postures, it wasn't a hard guess as to which one it was. "I wanted to drink something." Now that his nerves had calmed down it was easier for the boy to keep his voice in check and actually speak without having to start over in the middle of the sentence. He nodded towards the medicine cabinet. "One of you hurt?" No answer, but after eleven years Diego knew what he had to do in situations like these. He raised an eyebrow, turning his head towards the smaller boy. "Ben?"   
Number Six caved almost immediately. "We were hungry and Klaus accidentally cut himself while slicing an apple." An amused snort escaped Diego, as he heard Klaus mumble a quiet but still pretty audible "Traitor" in the direction of the smaller kid. Ben raised his shoulders defensively but didn't try to say anything else so Diego wordlessly held out his own hand towards Klaus in a clear indication of,  _show me!_ Number Four hesitated for a second before his posture slumped a little bit and he pulled his right hand from behind his back to show Diego the work they had done. Cautiously examining his little brother's hand, Diego decided that the bandage work, while being a little excessive, was decent enough. "You need to be more" he stopped imagining the word like Mother had taught him, before testing it out loud. "careful" 

Klaus snatched his hand out of his brothers grasp and rolled his eyes. "Don't get your panties in a twist, it was an accident." He turned back around, jamming the rest of the bandages back behind the mirror, bevor showing past Diego and making his way out of the bathroom. Ben gave an awkward little smile, before hurrying after Klaus and Diego couldn't help the roll of his eyes. Turning off the light of the bathroom he opted to follow the chaos pair, who had made their way into the kitchen, where apparently their escapade had started. Ben sat down on one of the chairs, pulling his feet up to rest his head on his knees and tiredly stare onto the table where a half sliced apple rested, while Klaus jumped up on the table and sat down there. He took one of the sliced apple pieces and popped it into his mouth, grinning from ear to ear, for a reason Diego didn't know and didn't really care about.   
He moved to the sink, filled a glass with water and raised his head to look outside. The snowfall had stopped. "Great", he mumbled while taking a sip. Silence lay in the room, with none of the siblings talking, till Klaus finally raised his voice a little bit. "So... how much trouble do you get we would get in if we decided to go outside." Diego snorted quietly and turned his head a little bit, to give Klaus his  _You're kidding right?_ look. For a second Number Two and Number Four stared at each other. Then, as if they had read each other's mind, they raced to the back door, throwing it open, trying to beat each other to leave the first footprint in the freshly fallen snow. Not shoes, no socks, just pyjamas, and bare feet. 

Diego felt a laugh bubble up in his breast. The cold ground felt almost burning beneath his feet, but he ignored it, breathing in the winter air instead. "We really shouldn't be outside." He hadn't even noticed that Ben had followed them into the backyard, arms crossed in front of himself, shivering slightly. They were all shivering in fact. But they could help that, they just needed to move around a little more. They would get warm in no time. And move they did, because Diego hadn't even had time to respond to his little brother's worries before a snowball hit him square in the back.   
The boy spun around. There Klaus stood, another Snowball already in his hands and the biggest shit-eating grin Diego had ever seen on his face. "Oops", he said exaggeratedly pulling the word longer than it had to be. For a second all the other boy could do was stare at him, before he leaned down to scoop some snow up himself. "You are so dead", he laughed preparing to throw the ball he had formed, when another load of snow hit him in the back. "You forget, it's two against one." Klaus was almost doubled over with laughter, while Ben delivered his one-liner, before diving for safety behind the big tree. Of course, they would fraternize against him. A half dangerous half playful expression came to rest on Diego's face. Nobody was challenging him to a snowball fight. Nobody in their right mind that was. Klaus had followed Bens example and was now perched behind the Oaktree, where he and Number Four had started working on enough ammunition to last them for quite a while when Diego threw his first ball.

It steered straight towards the tree, before dodging to the right, circling around it and vanishing behind the trunk. A swift thud and screeching laughter told Diego that he had hit his target. Of course, he had. Then all hell broke loose. Snowballs were thrown back and forth and by the time Diego was able to catch his breath, he was soaked to his bones. He was about to bend down and scoop up more snow when the back door was thrown open and light flooded the backyard. The Boy had to squint a little bit, to make out the shape in the door, but he felt his eyes widen in shock when he was able to recognize the person in front of him. Shit.

Reginald Hargreeves was not amused in his adoptive sons' misbehavior and it showed. Diego swallowed softly while standing up straight. There was nothing he could say to defend himself. He was well aware of this and by the guilty look on his brothers' faces, he knew that they were as well. "We were just...", he started but the sharp town of his father's voice made him stop just as quick as he had started talking. "You were defying my direct orders Number 2", the old man barked in that oddly cold town of his. "We will talk about this in the morning. Now get inside. And don't you dare leave your room, before you are told to." It was their own fault really. If they had been just a little bit quieter they wouldn't have woken the old man. But in all their fun they hadn't even spared half a mind that maybe, just maybe, they were a little bit too loud. Diego let his head hang low, while he made his way past his father into the house, where Mother was already up and running. Fussing over the three cold and wet boys, telling them that they needed to keep their fingers and toes warm, or they would fall off! It was only at that moment, that Diego noticed how much his body ached from the cold it had been enduring for the past 10 Minutes.   
  
Later when he lay in his bed, wearing a fresh pyjama and having a hot water bottle on his feet, he thought about the question Klaus had asked, when they were sitting in the kitchen. How much trouble would they get into? A lot, Diego feared. But, remembering the joyous laughter of his little brothers and the fact that he had fulfilled his wish of running around in the snow, he contemplated, that it might just be worth it. 

 


End file.
